"Enaje screamed in pain as men dressed as Roman soldiers hammered stainless steel nails into his palms and feet... His cross was raised and he was hanged there for several minutes under the searing afternoon sun before the nails were pulled out and he was taken on a stretcher to a first aid station."

The news service cited Alex Laranang, 58, as saying that he was doing it "for good luck and for my family to be healthy."

Reuters cited Archbishop Paciano Aniceto as saying the practice was a distortion of Christ's teachings.

However, he defended the devotees' right to practise their faith in a ritual that he described as "popular piety."

Separately, Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio David told Reuters that folk Catholicism was practised widely in the Philippines, a country whose population of 96 million people is predominently (80 percent) Catholic.

"We are in no position to suppress them. I do not think it is right to close our doors to them just because they are more attracted to these folk practices than to our Roman liturgy which they may find too foreign or cerebral."